1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an information retrieval/information retrieval result providing system and an information retrieval/information retrieval result providing method and a storage medium recording method program. More particularly, the invention relates to a system, a method and a storage medium recognizing a search request item of user, a search level, an information retrieval result providing method, a search range, an information storage period, an information access terminal and information storage site, performing information retrieval from an information sending server presenting on a network, such as internet or the like, processing the information retrieval result, storing for a given period and providing information retrieval result to the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as an information retrieval method and an information retrieval result providing method for retrieving and providing information presented on the network, utilizing network on the internet, there has been known a providing method of performing retrieval (searching) information on the information sending server on the network by information retrieval server depending upon a demand of information retrieval for the predetermined information retrieval server from the user and transmitting the information retrieval result at a timing where information retrieval is performed. Here, the information retrieval server provides URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the information sending server presenting the information matching with the retrieval item demanded by the user, and summary (information summary) of information, as information retrieval result.
FIG. 11 is an illustration showing the conventional information retrieval system and information retrieval result providing method. The conventional information retrieval system and the information retrieval result providing method are constructed with a user terminal 210, an information sending server (1) 230, an information sending server (2) 231, an information sending server (3) 232 established and managed by business entities, organizations, individuals for the purpose of presenting information, an information retrieval server (1) 220 and an information retrieval server (2) 221 established and managed by business entities and organizations for the purpose of retrieval of information presented on the network, and a network 200 connecting respective components with each other.
The user accesses the information retrieval server (1) 220 or information retrieval server (2) 221 via the user terminal 210. Here, it is assumed that the user selects the information retrieval server (1) 220 as the information retrieval server to request information retrieval. The user designates keyword, term or the like of the information retrieval item on a display screen of the user terminal 210. The designated keyword or the like is transmitted (201) to the information retrieval server (1) 220 via the network 200.
The information retrieval server (1) 220 receiving the information retrieval request recognizes keyword, term and so forth input by the user to the user terminal 210 to perform collection of information from the information sending server (1) 230, the information sending server (2) 231 and information sending server (3) 232 established on the network.
The information retrieval server (1) 220 recognizes presence of information containing the keyword designated by user in the information sending server (1) 230 and the information sending server (2) 231 and obtains (202, 203) of URL and information summary of the information sending server (1) 230 and the information sending server (2) 231.
The information retrieval server (1) 220 completed collection of information transmits (205) information retrieval/collection result to the user terminal 210. Then, the user obtains and accesses demanded information via the user terminal 210.
In the conventional information retrieval system, depending upon mechanism of web browser used for accessing information retrieval demand and information retrieval result, the information retrieval server merely provides the information retrieval result by temporarily displaying the Web browser and is designed to perform process of providing the information retrieval demand and the information retrieval result by synchronizing (mutually transmitting and receiving data) the user terminal and the information retrieval server. Accordingly, in the conventional information retrieval and providing method, when the user requires information once retrieved in the past, information retrieval has to be newly performed to repeat operation of process procedure for obtaining retrieval information to be impossible to effectively use the information result, such as transfer of the retrieved information to the other party.
On the other hand, since the conventional information retrieval system is designed to constantly provide information retrieval result from the information retrieval server in response to the demand of the retrieval information from the user, the user is required access period due to retrieval period every time in repeated access to the information retrieval result, and is also required access period depending upon the location of the user terminal due to distance and crowded condition to the information retrieval server on the network.
Furthermore, in the conventional information retrieval system, a method to display only URL of the retrieval result and summary of information to be presented the URL has been taken. When broadband image information, audio information, special format data and so forth are present in the URL, checking and access of such data is impossible unless the user terminal has a function for reproducing such data. Namely, in diversification of functions of the user terminals, most of users cannot access the information retrieval result equally.
On the other hand, in the conventional information retrieving system, the information retrieval server takes all information sending server established on the network. Therefore, when huge amount of information retrieval results are presented, user has to spend large amount of time for obtaining truly required information. For example, when several hundreds of relevant URLs are obtained as a result of the retrieving on the network by the information retrieval server, the user has to perform troublesome checking process in order to narrow down to necessary minimum number of URLs containing required information out of several hundreds of URLs.
In the conventional information retrieval system, access method only by the Web browser is employed to operate the user terminal and the information retrieval server in synchronous manner while the information retrieval result is accessed and displayed by the Web browser. Then, the user terminal is in the state where retrieval and information access are active, the user is not possible to even store the information retrieval result from the user terminal to other server or so forth.